Christina Aguilera’s Style: The Voice (Season 3) – Final Live Performances

What a night! Yesterday the second last episode of The Voice featured the final live performances and included a heart-felt tribute to the victims of the recent Connecticut school shooting.  I think this was the best way to get the evening started: it’s true the show is about glitz, glam and music, but it’s also true that its protagonists are not disconnected from reality. Moreover, I really appreciated the way in which the tribute was presented, with the coaches and all the contestants of this season holding a card with the names of the victims on it; for once, the focus was not on the killer, but on the poor victims, despite what usually happens in the news.

As for Christina, she sported two outfits. The chair look reminded me of what she wore last year at the finale (in that case, the black sequin blazer was by Dolce & Gabbana) and brought back some memories from the Back to Basics era, as my friend Jessica correctly noticed.

I’m a Big Girl, Got No Secrets This Time

Music videos have been one of my strongest passions since I was a child: in the 80s and 90s my visual memory feasted on the eccentric and complex aesthetics that many singers introduced in their videos. I stopped watching tv in 2003 and have no intention to break this habit: as a result, I don’t watch as many videos as I used to, because spending (or wasting) time on YouTube or Daily Motion is not exactly the way I want to live my life. Yes, I watch the videos everyone is talking about, but that’s it. This morning I was checking my Facebook page, when I stumbled across a link to a video, posted by a former student of mine, a girl who loves music as much as I do. It was a link to Jennifer Lopez’s latest video, Dance Again, directed by Paul Hunter and featuring Pitbull [1].

What can I say? I watched it once just out of curiosity and it got me intrigued; I watched again and it got me excited; I watched for the third time and I asked myself if there’s something wrong with me: I was captivated! She launched her music career in 1999 and at the time I was a fan of hers: two of her songs – If You Had My Love and Waiting for Tonight – remind me of the time I met the boy that is now my husband. I still love that phase of her career but then I stopped caring about her; I kept on watching her videos, but nothing more. I don’t know the reason why Dance Again caught my attention, but maybe I can try to understand it through the following analysis.

In the opening scene, Jennifer steps into an elegant room: she’s dressed in black and has a black latex band around her upper arm. She sports her trademark glowy make-up and straight hair.